Hope for Today will inspire you to live a life connected to Christ by empowering you to fall in love with Jesus through personal spiritual growth. Teaching you the power of your identity and authority in Christ. Encouraging you in your inheritance as an ambassador for the kingdom of God!

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Monthly Archives: May 2015

Grace. A free gift of underserved favor. I have even heard grace stated this way, “Grace is not getting what one deserves, (death because of sin), and grace is getting what one doesn’t deserve, (favor).

If we really ponder this, grace is a part of our inheritance and our identity as believers in Jesus Christ. Why then, is hard for many to accept God’s complete grace for our life? Perhaps it is pride or fear or still feeling undeserving of his grace and his love. I can’t answer this question for you only God can, but you have to be willing to ask. That is part of the care and concern you give to your relationship with God.

Holy Spirits latest revelation to me about being more intimate with Him is to let go of; to surrender, what I think my mess ups are, to Him. He whispers to my heart, “My child, accept My great grace for your life. Stop beating yourself up over your missteps. Confess, repent and move on in freedom! You are already forgiven. Anything less would be a mockery of what I have already done on the cross!”

Let me ask you this; what do you when you receive a gift? If you’re like me you’re excited to receive a gift, open it and enjoy whatever has been given. How would you feel if you gave someone a gift and they put it aside, not acknowledging it, not opening it and not enjoying what you have chosen just for them? I’m guessing you would feel sad and hurt.

How do you think God feels when we choose not to accept his gifts?

Precious One, if you ask God to show you how to accept his gifts he will. It may be work on your part but the gift makes is all worth while.

I have been blogging about finding deeper intimacy with God and asking God what this looks like for my life. At first God seemed to be silent on the matter, which disappointed me a bit because what started this quest to find deeper intimacy with God was the result of me feeling there is so much more to my relationship with Him. I felt like I had hit a brick wall then suddenly Holy Spirit open the floodgates and daily I am finding new treasures He has set out for me, like going on a treasure hunt finding clue after clue of where the treasure hides!

Yesterday I was standing in front of one of our book shelves and my eyes spotted our devotionals, the small “Jesus Calling” size devotionals. I went to reach for one and thought, “no, I want to read this one instead”, but my hand went for the first one intended.

Here is an excerpt of today’s devotion:

“People don’t lose intimacy when they stop talking, but when they stop listening. Leaders seldom realize how much their listening empowers the other person. Because they are leaders, the sheer act of listening speaks volumes that even a great speech can’t communicate.” John Maxwell

In my experience this is just like Holy Spirit. When you ask God a question be prepared to receive an answer(s)! It has also been my experience that God always goes above and beyond what we ask of Him. Why? This goes back to something I am passionate about; our relationship with God, which by the way, doesn’t just happen. Just like our earthly relationships, which both parties give care and concern too in order for the relationship to be a relationship, our relationship with God desires care and concern. Besides, I believe God loves to bless us just because we are his kids! I know I love to bless my kids just because I love them beyond compare.

However, what is the deeper meaning of God blessing us? One of my favorite Psalms is Psalm 37:4:

Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart.

What this Psalm expresses is that when we delight in God by nurturing and giving care and concern to our relationship with him, he gives us the desires of our heart, because we make room for him to place his heart over our heart and his desires become our desires. This ties back to more intimacy with Him. This requires us to surrender more of ourselves to him; giving him our desires, our hopes, our plans.

Our choice didn’t end when we chose Jesus. Every day we get to choose to nurture our relationship with Him. I mean really nurture our relationship with him. Asking him to show us what He wants our relationship with Him to look like.

Perhaps this is what the Chronicler meant in 1 Chronicles 22:19:

Now devote your heart and soul to seeking the LORD your God.

Precious One God wants to be intimate with you. He’s simply waiting for you to ask!

What would it look like if every believer in Christ asked God to show them what it looks like for them to be more intimate with Him?

I believe the word intimacy scares many people. There is such rawness and vulnerability around this emotion. And fear, the unhealthy type, is a response to a supposed punishment. But, as a believer in Christ, He has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love and of a sound mind. Power, love and a sound mind are our inheritance in Christ and, yes, even our identity in Him!

For me today becoming more intimate with God means my willingness to look at the ugliness in my heart that I didn’t know was there. Thanking him for revealing it and asking him boldly to remove it. Even if the cost is temporary emotional upheaval. The outcome is more than I can ever hope or imagine!